Little Butterfly

"Home is where the heart lies"  - Unknown 

So I have been home now for almost 5 months and here is my thoughts on the current matters. 

Ok, maybe I sound a little melodramatic. I could be sometimes. 

After 3 months of roaming the continents and working for a year with those who doesn't even speak my language I can safely say I had a damn big experience and an even bigger adventure. My trip taught me a lot of different things. Some things I'm still discovering today. And other things I know already. I used to be afraid what people might think of me as a person and I used to bend myself and change myself depending on the conversation I found myself in. I became a nurd with the nurds, a party animal with the party animals, a dancer with the dancer, a clueless blonde with those who didn't enrich me and all this change for no other reason but to fit into the group. Whilst overseas I learned to be myself, to talk to strangers with an open mind, to listen to understand rather than to reply and to make sense of other peoples emotions and experiences. It took me a while to understand when to speak and when to keep quiet but eventually I did get it right. To be open minded about different things does come in handy especially when you live in a country as wildly diverse as Africa. I also had to learn how to only rely on myself for entertainment and how to enjoy time by myself. Its not the easiest thing to come to terms with when you have to drastically make a change in an emotional state of mind whilst having no cushioning to soften your fall. I had to survive and adjust my survival skills. I had to become me. I became who I wanted to be as a person. Because it was the only thing I was sure about; the only thing I knew.

Now I am home. I drive on any road and I see my mountain. Table mountain. Something that everybody sees every single day in Cape Town but so very few people really appreciate. It's about perception I suppose. And also comfort and habits. The habit to do the same thing every single day. To worry, think and feel the same thing every single day. And most ordinary people who work for a living will tell me you have to since you need to make a living. I guess that part is very true. You cannot do what you want to do, the things that makes you happy without doing something that makes money first. And for that reason it is extremely important to do something work wise that makes you happy. If your everyday life or job is awful how are you going to survive the month? But why do we work and kill our creativity and emotional wellbeing behind a screen or in front of those who doesn't know us at all. 

All these ideas and "duties" as I would like to call them started appearing since the very first step I took off the airplane. What job am I going to do? Where am I going to stay? How long am i going to stay with my parents? Who am I going to be? What is my future plans? All these questions popped up in my head not to mention that everyone I saw afterwards stared asking me these every same answerless questions. I felt like I was 18 years again and sometimes I wonder if Bryan Adams' song "18 till I die" isn't suited to my life. 

I had to make money so I grabbed on to the one thing that I know which is teaching. First I started out as a substitute teacher in Mathematics and Science at a handy capped school. I absolutely loved that. It was pretty amazing working with kids who really wants to learn and really try their best to understand even though I really had to be patient. But being in Korea taught me a lot of patience. And if I knew what was to come I would've taught myself a lot more. But it wasn't sustainable and I had to find a more permanent option. I found a high school near me who needed a Science and Mathematics teacher and started working as a full time teacher for a penny. But my heart is pulling towards something even more fulfilling than teaching children who doesn't want to learn the value of knowledge. It saddens me that at the age of 15 years old children already make the decision not to learn and be disrespectful to those who wants to share their story. And with age it gets even worse. It saddens me that I cannot show them what they are forfeiting in the process. But the " if I could go back and do it all over" saying is just that, a meaningless saying with no power unless it's you saying it to yourself. Helping young people to write their futures could be my greatest achievement yet I need to prepare myself for war every morning as I enter a school building. Its not only here, its everywhere around the world. But let me stop there because I don't want to be negative as I still have hope and still believe in my students. 

I'm already burning to take my next trip overseas. It kills me to sit in one place and repeat life every single day after knowing what is out there. There is so many magnificent places out there that it would be a shame leaving this earth without discovering the places that people talk about. To meet the cultures people moan about. To learn about religions people are against and to make friends who's language you hardly understand. Its about the unknown and making it known. It's about writing a story that suits your interests. Its about living a full life and ticking the boxes.

"Live your life with a purpose or else there is no point to living" - Ania Botha